|
|
|
|
Building on the strong foundation formed by RoboCup, RoboFlag will extend
the competition into a new realm. Two teams of five fully autonomous
Robots will match off in a game of capture the flag. The idea of the game
is to venture into opponent territory, locate and capture the "flag," and
return with the flag back to the "home base." While this may not sound
difficult, a team must do this while the opponent is actively attempting
to thwart all attempts at capturing the flag, either by trying to sideline
a robot by hitting it with a "scoring ball," or following it and making a
"tag." In addition, there are various hazards located around the field
that the robots must find and avoid, as well as limitations on the maximum
distance any robot can travel without returning home to fuel up. Getting
harder? Tack on a vision system and an autonomous arbiter (the
referee) that restricts information based on the state of the system, and
it just got a lot harder. All in all, it is going to be a rather exciting
competition.
The main goal of RoboFlag is to create an environment where successful strategies must be variable, flexible, and dynamic. Throughout a match, the two teams must adapt their strategies in order to determine which one works best. They will react to score changes, flag captures, and the many other incidents that can occur in the game. Individual robots will perform different functions at different times, with different objectives. The possibilities for innovation are endless. Being a new competition, it is up to Cornell to define the rules and parameters that lead to interesting and challenging problems. Other universities are very interested in this competition and are looking to Cornell to take the lead in making this competition a reality. In this first year, we are using the existing RoboCup robots, as this allows more time for the Intelligence and Control aspects of the project to be developed. In the future, we expect to make mechanical variations to the robots to optimize the performance within the RoboFlag environment. The RoboCup team will always be a source of innovation that will feed RoboFlag, just as RoboFlag will feed RoboCup as the competitions develop. |
||||||||||||||||||
